People are always so eager to fall all over themselves with excitement because the pope manages to say one sensible thing once in a blue moon. It’s very hard to say all absurd things all the time – naturally the pope slips up now and then. If he says “this milk has gone sour” when the milk has in fact gone sour, there’s no need to interrupt anyone with a news bulletin.
So yes, just because he thinks it might be worth not frying the planet we live on to a crisp, that doesn’t mean he’s not still a catholic. He is still a catholic. He wouldn’t be a pope otherwise. I promise you that’s a major criterion for the job.
He’s still a catholic, and he still thinks women should be forced to continue every pregnancy no matter what.
The publication of the Pope’s first solely authored encyclical has been widely celebrated by environmentalists, climate change campaigners and other religious leaders.
However, the text confirms the Pope’s views on abortion and the sanctity of life in line with traditional Roman Catholic teaching.
Of course it does. Did you think he would include a paragraph saying, “Oh and also, abortion is allowed, because after all it’s the woman who has to deal with it, not me, so it’s really none of my business”?
Kate Smurthwaite, vice-chair and media spokesperson for Abortion Rights UK, told The Independent that she was “unsurprised” at the Pope’s recent remarks and labelled them “terrible news for the planet”.
She said the remarks were an important reminder that “he’s not the great transformer that people would like him to be.”
“The reality is that one of the environmental problems is over-population,” she continued. “That’s not really a reason to or not to allow people their reproductive rights, but they are a basic right which many women around the world would like to have.”
And which the pope would like them not to have, and he has a lot more power than they do.